My Daddy is Mr. Money Bags!

Emma discovered Daddy's wallet on Friday night. Wonder how often this will happen when she gets to be a teenager. Daddy's love their little girls!

Cruel Parents Without Hearts!

Waiting to get my ears pierced.

Well, we did it. We had Emma's ear's pierced on Saturday. We took her to Claires at the mall. The store is located next to the Northwoods Cafe and, of course, the piercing station is at the enterance to the store. Sooooo, the whole Cafe could hear Emma screaming while we held her still. She hates being held onto. It's funny because that is the worse part for her when she gets shots. As soon as they are done and she can be "on the go" again, she's fine. Well, as you can see from the photos, I tried holding her (because Daddy was a little chicken), but she was to wiggly, so then Daddy held her while they pierced them. As you can see, it was just as hard on Daddy as it was on Emma. She cried for about 5 minutes afterwards and then acted like nothing ever happened. Steve only cried for a few minutes. The worst part of the whole thing is that an older woman walked past during the screaming and she said "Oh, I just wouldn't have the heart to do that to my child". I say, "Poooey on you" (because that is just the Christian thing to say).....she's just fine. She hasn't touched them at all and doesn't even mind when I turn them or clean them for her. And, she looks so darn cute. We're hoping that this is the only part of her body she will have pierced!!

Daddy is scared, too!!

Sleeping like a little angel...with pierced ears!!

Meeting Jan Brett

On Tuesday, famous children's author and illustrator, Jan Brett, came to visit the Appleton Public Library. She did a demonstration of her artwork and spoke for a few minutes and then did a book signing. Being the teacher mom I am, I pulled the boys from school a half hour early so we could get in line to get our ticket for having a book signed. We were number 70 of about 200 people!! Jan's artwork is amazing!! She has such vivid details.

This was the fourth author Noah has met. He went down to Milwaukee last fall to meet Lemony Snickett and last year at the Young Author's Conference (also in Milwaukee) he met Nancy Carlson and Sneed Collard.

Enjoy the photos!

Cheerios Disaster and Pizza Spaghetti "Emma" Style

OK...I finally feel like I am getting caught up on this blog thing. It's been tough keeping up with it since school started. Here are some photos of Emma's Cheerio Disaster and her enjoying Grandma Fidlin's "Pizza Spaghetti Style" dish, which we could rename "Pizza Spaghetti 'Emma' Style"! Enjoy!

Emma Loves Her "Baa" (Bath)

Emma loves taking baths. As soon as we mention the word "bath", she immediatly says "baa" and drags us to the stairs so we can unlock the gate and she can climb up the steps to the "baa"tub!! She spends much of her time standing up and sitting down....standing up and sitting down. She must be remembering her "water therapy" (basically a baby with an innertube around her neck...yes, neck, floating in a blow-up type barrel of warm water) from when she was in China and thinks she needs to get some excercise in! She hates getting out of the tub and "growls" and pushes you away if you try to get her out. She's gonna' be one clean little girl!!

Wisconsin Dells

The first weekend of October, we went to Wisconsin Dells with Becky, Randy and their kids. Wow!! We've got quite the crew now. Ten people altogether...four adults and six kiddos!! Are we crazy or what?? We spent much of the weekend at the hotel pool which was just fine with the kids. We also went on a boat tour of the lower dells and the kids had fun making their own pizzas at the Uno Chicago Grill.

A True Fidlin!

Well, we know Emma's a true Fidlin now. She LOVES ice cream!! When we first brought her home, she didn't like it becuase it was sooo cold. Everything in China is either room temperature or hot. Even our Cokes were warm....yuck!! Anyway, she now is an ice-cream lover just like all of the other Fidlins. We went to Tom's Drive In after church one Sunday night and ordered her a baby cone. What a mess she made, but she ate the whole thing, cone and all!! You go, girl!!

Becky's 30th Birthday Party

Wow!! You can tell that I am back at school!! It's taken me over a month to put the photos on from Becky's surprise party. My baby sister turned the big 3-0 on September 17th. Her husband decided to throw a surprise party for her. I was in charge of making the cake. Go figure...all these years of cakes that flopped and since we've been back from China with our little Emma, I have made 4 cakes that have turned out great. Becky LOVES candy, so I went with the candy theme. Here is a close up photo of the Candyland cake I made for the party.